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Emergence Day
E-Day Emergence Day, or "E-Day" for short, is the day that the Locust Horde emerged from the underground caverns of Sera, launching a full-fledged assault upon the human race. In twenty four hours, the Locusts attacked every major city across Sera. The Locust had exterminated one quarter of the human population in a very genocidal fashion; making no discrimination between women, men and children alike. For the warring human nations, still caught up in the Pendulum Wars, the attack was completely unexpected, and factions that had been hell-bent on slaughtering one another a day earlier now set aside their differences to combat the new threat, eventually uniting under the banner of the Coalition of Ordered Governments, or C.O.G. Under the leadership of C.O.G, the remaining human population fell back to Jacinto Plateau, where the Locust couldn't penetrate the hard granite plateau. After evacuating as many civilians and soldiers as they could, C.O.G. resorted to scorched earth tactics to buy themselves time, laying waste to over ninty percent of the planet's surface with everything from orbital satellite-based weapons to chemical weapons. The use of such desperate tactics, plus the consistant use over the years of the Hammer of Dawn and chemical weaponry like nerve gas managed to annihilate the Locust vanguard, forcing the survivors to retreat to their underground tunnels. It is unknown how many Locust and humans were killed by this cataclysmic bombardment, though given the extent to which C.O.G relied upon it, the figure is potentially in the tens of millions. "For those citizens who can't make it to Jacinto, the Coalition appreciates your sacrifice. Please forgive us, this is the only way." - was the Official C.O.G. Statement Not all humans experienced the fate of escape or annihilation, however. Any surviving civilians outside of Jacinto were left homeless, malnourished and cut off from the rest of humanity or anything approaching a politically stable state. Dubbed The Stranded, these refugees were apologized to and in and then abandoned by the COG government, forcing them to find ways to defend themselves ever since. Meanwhile, the human survivors rallied at Jacinto under the leadership of C.O.G. Shortly after Emergence Day, the Fortification Act was passed, directing human society into a state of total war, while leaving Jacinto under a state of permanent martial law. Outcome Emergence Day was a bitter victory for humanity at great cost, to the point that one might consider it Pyrrhic. The Pendulum Wars had greatly weakened and divided their forces, giving the Locust an advantage in the battle. However, after decades of a persistent state of war, humanity had been collectively battle-hardened. E-Day forced humanity to consolidate their standing forces and cooperate against the mutual threat of extinction. Ultimately, at great cost to human life and infrastructure, the Locust were driven back by orbital weaponry and chemical warfare but were not defeated. Over the next decade, the Locust would rise again and continue their persistent onslaught against humanity, finally breaching Jacinto Plateau at the East Barricade Academy ten years after Emergence Day.